Live Free. Live Happy.

Born on 21st August 1982 at around 7.30 AM, weighing a mere 2.5 Kgs, I was the second child in my family (and the last :)). My entire schooling (oh yeah that means L.K.G, U.K.G and 1-10) was at "St. Patricks High School". From what I remember I was extremely introvert and someone who was quite easily bullied in school. My mother often tells me, I used to come home daily and cry and crib and ask her to change my school. I remember there was one "Murtuza" who poked a pencil in my ear once. And my sister was so mad at him that she came to my school and threatened him to such an extent that he never again troubled me. Well, I guess that is how my sister has always felt towards me "protective".

Perhaps this was one of the reasons why I used to avoid people. Or maybe I suffered from socio phobia. I somehow had this opinion that all my classmates were aliens from some kind of a weird planet :). I still remember one guy who always used to be behind me saying "Rahul, let us be friends" and oh boy, how hard I had tried to avoid him. There were only a few guys with whom I used to be in touch and that was mainly to borrow notes in case I missed any classes. Not to forget that I suffer from something known as OCD (Obsessive compulsive disorder), one of the effects of which was seen when taking down notes from the blackboard. I used to copy word-to-word, letter-to-letter, maintaining the lower and upper case, the commas, the fullstops and the size of the fullstops. I guess it used to give me a sense of completeness. Copying content from the blackboard to such minute detail used to always leave me behind, and hence I had to borrow notes regularly. But I guess I am far better now, though sometimes I touch metal side of the iron and walk on parapet walls and have a strong feeling of touching electric wires ... hee hee.

I'm a person who thinks more with his left brain. In other words, I am someone who is logical, sequential, rational, analytical, objective and looks at parts (oh I'm not really this good at vocab, I just copied the terms from http://www.funderstanding.com/right_left_brain.cfm :D). As you must have realized, most schools encourage this kind of learning and hence I proved to be quite good at academics, at least for the first few years. Probably I was my best in 6th standard when I topped the school (and yeah that was quite some achievement). And then, I don't know what happened, whether I lost that competitive spirit or my brain had deteriorated ;), but I never ever performed that well again. Not in school, not in intermediate and not in engineering. This is probably one of the biggest reasons why I feel I could have performed better at acads and that I have not given it my best shot.

Moving on, I chose to opt the MPC stream (Maths-Physics-Chemistry) at the intermediate level (i.e. 11th and 12th). Something which I am asked frequently is - "If your entire family is into the medicine, then why did u choose the MPC stream?". My simple answer is that because I am miserable at remembering all the biological names. I am someone who enjoys logical thinking than memorizing information. And my life these two years was not very different from that of any other intermediate student. There was a lot of pressure to perform well these two years because there are the big exams like Eamcet, IIT, IIIT at the end which decide which college I get into. I had made it through one of the premier IIT coaching institutes in A.P. "Mega Study Circle". My initial performance was not bad but towards the mid of the second year I found it difficult to cope up. Though I had cleared the preliminary round of IIT (which I was very confident I would clear), my morale was somehow very low on performing well in the mains. In the time period between the prelims and mains, I somehow fell into the mindset that I couldn't clear the mains. And whether it was my lack of potential or lack of commitment, my preparation was not up to the mark and I couldn't clear the mains. Among the other exams given were Eamcet and IIIT. With a not so great rank in Eamcet (state level entrance exam) and my number not being present when IIIT results were published in the paper, I decided to give IIT next year and started preparing for it. But fate it seems had something else in store for me. One week after the IIIT results were published in the paper, I received a post from the IIIT admin informing me that I was selected into their academic program. One could just imagine at the excitement I felt at that moment. It was no less than a miracle for me. I don't think I was able to come out of that jubilant mood for at at least a week.

IIIT I think was the most important phase in my life - personally and professionally. While professionally it helped me to increase my value technically, personally I came out from the introvert I was to a fun-loving friendly person. The 8 semesters at IIIT are perhaps the most memorable moments in my life. And to be frank, for most of the people, their engineering lives are the best. Moments like playing table tennis all night, sleeping like a log all-day, going to canteen at midnight, working late night in the lab (especially when assignment was due next day) and downloading software shall always be cherished. And probably because of the residential hostel, I was able to make some really good buddies. IIIT, I think I can confidently say, brought about a very positive change in me.

But things don't last for ever. And so did not the 4 years of engineering. Having made through the campus placements, I knew where I was heading to next - "Infosys". While I cannot say Infosys was any major turning point in my career, I think it had a big impact on my personal life. I faced the extremes of bliss and frustration in a relationship during my stay at Infosys. People say that whatever happens is for your own good. While I cannot agree with that completely, I do admit that I have come out a lot more wiser person than I was earlier. Going through all that I went through has somehow made me understand myself better. It has made me realize what to prioritize, help me be ready to accept change and know what I really enjoy. The repercussions of what I had been through are even felt today and will always be there, but I think that is what life is all about, putting the past beyond and looking forward to the future :).

Yeah, so enough of personal life crap, now back to my career. Having a keen interest in network programming, I quit Infosys to take a two month break and start looking for a job in my interested domain. I am not sure if it was because of the lack of experience I had in the domain or because there were so less jobs, I had a really tough time getting a call from any of the companies. It took me six months before I got my first call. During these six months, I concentrated a lot on my personal hobbies. I learnt cooking, went for swimming and spent most of the time fiddling with my server and making changes to my website. Frankly speaking, I think I could have made a lot better use of the time I had in hand :). Anyway, I was more than prepared for the interview and it went really cool. This was my first interview for a job (there was no interview before joining Infosys :)) and though I made a couple of mistakes, I was confident and made it through. But then there is always that fate which makes your final decision. Just when I thought everything was over, I got a reply saying that due to some unexpected changes, they were not hiring any new employees and I was told that I would be informed if they were any openings. So I was back again with the job hunt. A couple of weeks after this happened, one of my IIIT classmates approached me telling me that he was starting a company and whether I would be interested in joining him. I looked at the pros and cons of it. I never dreamed of starting a company. As a matter of fact, I never even thought in those directions. But then I felt this was one great learning opportunity. This was one place where you could make full use of your potential. This was one way where in you could better the economy (even though may not be significantly) and help people become self-sufficient. After all what did I have to lose - a couple of years of salary. Without much second thoughts, I decided to take the big leap. And this is where I am today - "Spinaxys Solutions". My partner calls me the COO of the company. Oh ... I'm pretty phobic about these terms. So I'll keep it more simple. I mainly look into the daily operations of the company. I'm extremely interested in linux administration which is the main reason why I am always trying to set up a new / better solution for the company. One really funny thing I noticed is the number of offers I got once I had made up my mind to start a company. And one was from the same company which had interviewed me earlier. They told me that they were openings and I could come and join right away. Oh yes, now that's what you call "fate" :).

So that's it folks ... 25 years of my life in a single page. And yeah there is a lot more to it - my philosophies, my ethics, my family, my cousins, my friends all of which defines me and has shaped me to what I am today. But for now I'll guess I'll stop here and probably write about all this at some later point of time.

Live Free. Live Happy :).